Hello,
I have 3 Nvidia graphics cards that are linked together via SLI.  I am using this:

Triple NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 graphics, 12GB GDDR5 – NVIDIA  SLI  Enabled

Does iClone6 take advantage of using linked (i.e. more than 1) graphics cards?  The GPUs are very powerful and it would take a lot of the pain away from opening projects and allowing for larger projects to be worked on at a time.

If not, is this something that could be added?  It is a GPU software that uses some of the game engine technology.  I never have any issues with the three graphics cards being used for a PC game with heavy graphics and physics.

Thanks,

Matthew


Matthew

PC stats:
Intel Core i7-5930K Processor (6-cores, 15MB Cache, Overclocked to 3.9 GHz with Turbo Boost)

Windows 10
Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics, 8GB
Memory - 16GB Quad Channel  DDR4 at 2133MHz
DirectX - 12

256GB SSD 6Gb/s main HD + 4TB 6kRPM SATA 6Gb/s Storage

what you have is 3 gpus linked together,  but your system will only recognize the vram off of the first one.  This is an operating system thing,  nothing that any software can control.  

The idea is that you send different bits to different gpus for processing,  but they all come back to the 1st - main set of ram when recompiled.

so for example ....you send bit set a (top 3rd of your image ) - to 1st card,  bit set b ( the middle section of your image ) - to be processed on second card,  bit set c, bottom 3rd of your image  - to be processed to a 3rd card -   they all get summed up in the ram in the 1st card.

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Thanks for the answer.  It's not what I wanted to hear, but....  :-)

I'm not having any issues with rendering out anything from iClone6.  It is very fast even on the highest settings for final rendering.  So the 3 cards must only be working during this part.  Let me just restate your answer to make sure I understood it.  While working in iClone6 only one graphics card is in use.  When I render out, the rendering is shared by the 3 GPUs and that's why the render is quick.

When I got iClone6 last year, all of the information about it pointed to the fact that it uses the graphics card GPU and not the main CPU.  My thought was that more graphics card would be good to have, but now I think I am understanding that it is not.  At least from working within iClone6.  It is great to have for rendering.

What is really frustrating me, and why I asked this question about the multiple graphics cards, is when I load a project it gets to 44% and then stays there for about 10 minutes.  Do you have any idea why that is happening?

Thanks again for your answer.

Matthew

PC stats:
Intel Core i7-5930K Processor (6-cores, 15MB Cache, Overclocked to 3.9 GHz with Turbo Boost)

Windows 10
Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics, 8GB
Memory - 16GB Quad Channel  DDR4 at 2133MHz
DirectX - 12

256GB SSD 6Gb/s main HD + 4TB 6kRPM SATA 6Gb/s Storage

I think the main point was:  4+4+4=4

If you have three 4GB graphics cards, it is not like having a 12GB card.  You do get more processing power, but the memory is not additive.  That's not an iClone thing, it's the way graphics cards work.

There have been attempts to change that, and I think maybe DX12 might begin to provide the control required to make that happen, but I'm pretty sure it's still mostly experimental.

Did you see Nvidia's announcement for their Pascal architecture?  They're mostly talking about "compute" cards at this stage, no gaming hardware yet.  Impressive numbers, though.  It's mind boggling when you remember that 21TFLOPS means 21 *trillion* floating point operations in one second.  Even if  a "flop" is a small thing, doing it a trillion times in one second is pretty staggering when you think about it.

---

iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

Grab GPU -Z from Tech powerup and see what your cards are doing

Thanks Viking.  I am not too smart on the hardware side of things, but I am getting educated quickly.  :-)

Hi Wendy,  I'll look into that link.  It certainly not hurt.

So, then, really the high end gaming PCs that use multiple graphics cards are no better than a PC running one high end graphics card.    I chose a high end gaming machine because iClone6 stated that it used the GPU and not the CPU for rendering.  Maybe for rendering the multiple cards help out?  I don't know.  But it will be nice to see what comes out in the future.  Bering able to take advantage of multiple graphics cards would be great.

Matthew

PC stats:
Intel Core i7-5930K Processor (6-cores, 15MB Cache, Overclocked to 3.9 GHz with Turbo Boost)

Windows 10
Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics, 8GB
Memory - 16GB Quad Channel  DDR4 at 2133MHz
DirectX - 12

256GB SSD 6Gb/s main HD + 4TB 6kRPM SATA 6Gb/s Storage

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/
the other link my channel in my sigline LOL 

chances are if the software is choking at 44%,  it's more than likely that you have an issue with your drivers somewhere .....even with just 1 card you have more than enough power to make iclone very quick,   so on 3 cards,  there can be either a hardware issue -  such as a loose ribbon, or a driver issue,   such as issues i've experienced recently - where when i was updating my nvidia driver,  my registry was a mess,  so i had to use ccleaner to clean out the garbage first before re-installing.

either way,  it ultimately sounds like a buffer under-run,   where your cache holds more info than your gpu is processing,  and basically stalls with all this data waiting to be processed, it's hit a choke point in your system that isn't allowing it to get to your gpu correctly.   so while you have the power,  you don't have a working data stream from iclone to the gpu.    if that makes any sense lol

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That does make sense.  At least it's another path I can investigate.  I have System Mechanic Pro to clean out the garbage, which I run every day before I start work.  But the loose ribbon is worth looking into.  I'll open up the machine and make sure everything is tight.   I'll also double check that my drivers are up to date.  I try to check that often.   I've only started experiencing this issue since Windows 10.
Thanks for the trouble shooting ideas.  I do appreciate it.

Matthew

PC stats:
Intel Core i7-5930K Processor (6-cores, 15MB Cache, Overclocked to 3.9 GHz with Turbo Boost)

Windows 10
Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics, 8GB
Memory - 16GB Quad Channel  DDR4 at 2133MHz
DirectX - 12

256GB SSD 6Gb/s main HD + 4TB 6kRPM SATA 6Gb/s Storage

another potential issue you may be having,   the 980 and windows 10 both have had unique issues overall,   if you don't find something after basic troubleshooting,  try searching google for the same issue specifically with your card, or windows 10,  but with another media type software,  or game.....on occasion when i'm troubleshooting,  i find that i may discover new issues that are not common with iclone,  but common with games.....sometimes due to settings that need to be changed.  -  while windows 10 and the gtx 980 are superior products,   they come with a caveat of unique issues


here's a page that may give some insight on that point -   http://wccftech.com/fix-windows-10-nvidia-driver-conflicts/

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu